Today, with rapid development of communication networks such as Internet, information searching through the communication network is very widely used. FIG. 1 shows a general network structure for providing a search result screen according to a search result of a searcher. A searcher can access to a search engine server 140 through communication networks such as Internet 130, using terminals 110 and 120 such as a PC (Personal Computer), and obtain search results in response to a keyword, by inputting the keyword. In the meantime, a network information provider is an enterprise or an individual for providing information wanted by a searcher, and accesses to the Internet through network information provider web servers 160 and 170. A search database 150 stores a plurality of search items regarding the network information provider, and each of the search items includes a title of a website, an URL (Uniform Resource Locator), which is a network address of a website, description of a website, and a keyword. In case a keyword requested by a searcher is in agreement with a keyword included in the search item, the search engine server 140 provides the relevant search item to a searcher for search results. For representative search engine servers widely used toady, there exists a naver (http://www.naver.com).
As the Internet has a close relation with the whole of our everyday lives, it has now become frequent that we search local living information related to the region where we lives, through the Internet. But, website information provided to a searcher through the Internet is so massive that it has become very difficult for a searcher to determine how to find out the website where information really wanted by a searcher is stored, among the search results.
For example, suppose a case that a searcher who lives in “Samsung-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul” inputs a keyword “dental clinic” to search a dental hospital in an Internet search engine in order to receive dental service. In that case, according to the prior art, since not knowing local information regarding the searcher, the Internet search engine server only provides search results in which local information of the searcher is not reflected, to the searcher. Namely, for the search results provided to the searcher, not only the dental clinics located in “Gangnam-gu, Seoul”, but also the dental clinics located in Busan or even in Jeju-do are provided as the search results. Further, since local information of the searcher is not reflected at all in the search results, a search item for the dental clinic located, far distant from the location of the searcher might be arranged as top-ranking search results, while a search item for the dental clinic located close to the location of the searcher might be arranged as low-ranking search results.
Also, suppose that the searcher inputs a keyword “dental clinic <AND> Gangnam-gu” into an input command window of the Internet search engine to find out a dental clinic located in the neighborhood of the searcher' home. Then, on the search result screen provided to the searcher, a plurality of search items related to the keywords “dental clinic” and “Gangnam-gu” are displayed. Among the search items, there exist search items regarding the dental clinics really located in Gangnam-gu, but a plurality of search items regarding the dental clinics that have nothing to do with the Gangnam-gu might be displayed due to limitation of the keyword search method. Also, even in case of the dental clinics really located in Gangnam-gu, if the dental clinic does not include information “Gangnam-gu” at its web page, such dental clinic might not be searched through the Internet searching.
Therefore, there exists inconvenience that a searcher should refer to and check the search items case by case, by making a considerable effort to find out information about the region desired by a searcher.
To improve such inconvenience, lots of methods for effectively searching and arranging a plurality of items so that a searcher may search, in the easier and faster manner, information about the region desired by a searcher, have been suggested.
FIGS. 2A, 2B, 2C and 2D show one example of a method for searching, by a searcher, local living information related to the searcher's region using an Internet search engine server. Here, FIG. 2A shows an example of a category list related to local living information provided to a searcher. As shown in FIG. 2A, a method for classifying, according to its category, the websites that are meaningful to a searcher, as local information and displaying the same, is used in the naver search engine server of NHN corporation.
If a searcher clicks the desired category by referring to a category's title among the category lists of FIG. 2A, the more detailed sub-category list which belongs to the above category is displayed on the next screen. FIG. 2B shows one example of the sub-category list provided to a searcher in case the category “health, medical care” is referred among the top-ranking category list of FIG. 2A. If a searcher selects a sub-category “dental clinic” at this time among the sub-category list of FIG. 2B, a massive amount of website search results related to the “dental clinic” is provided to a searcher as shown in FIG. 2C, in which the website search results related to the dental clinics scattered all over the country are arranged.
According to the prior art, to get a searcher to be able to search desired local information among the website search results, a method wherein a searcher inputs desired local information for searching, on the screen of FIG. 2C using a format of -si, -gu and the only website information related to the local information for searching is selected, classified, and provided as local information search results, has been suggested up to now. FIG. 2D shows one example of a screen of local information search results provided when “Seoul-si”, “Gangnam-gu” are input for local information in FIG. 2C.
Namely, according to the prior art, to get a user to carry out Internet information search related to a predetermined local information, a method wherein a user selects a category (for example, real estate, hospital, etc.) to which information to be searched belongs, and then delivers local information to the Internet search engine, has been used.
But, in the method for providing local information search results according to the foregoing prior art, there exists inconvenience that a searcher should search local information by passing through a plurality of steps and a searcher should input desired local information for searching together with a keyword. Therefore, for a searcher who intends to repeat information searching with different keywords regarding the same region, or to search local information whenever necessary, there exists inconvenience that a searcher should designate a region for searching every time upon searching.